


Our Roles To Play

by MsBarrows



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: Bromance, M/M, Prompt Fic, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-12 09:10:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsBarrows/pseuds/MsBarrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another set of prompts from Tumblr that appears to be turning into a series of related fills. Sebastian and Anders find grounds for a tentative friendship during a flu epidemic in Kirkwall. Takes place somewhere in the three year gap between Act 2 and Act 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. That Was Not What I Intended

He was tired. Stupidly tired. So tired his entire head felt like it was buzzing, so tired he couldn't stop the frantic working of his brain, couldn't relax, couldn't _sleep_ , as he moved from cot to cot, tending his patients. They needed him awake anyway; even if he could have slept, he didn't think he would have.

Most would live. He was thankful for that. A handful had died, too far gone with the flu that had hit the city this winter for him to do more than ease their passing. Sometimes not even that, as low on everything as the clinic had become over the last week and a half – low on potions, on herbs, on food and his magic and on fuel for the braziers that kept the clinic a vital few degrees about freezing.

He was thankful, at first, when he saw that someone had arrived and begun to help; a man in a plain robe of heavy undyed cloth, tight across broad shoulders, with rope sandals on his otherwise bare feet. He watched for a moment as the man began working his way around the room, handing out blankets from a tall stack of such held clasped in his arms, and then turned back to his own work, coaxing medicinal tea between the blued lips of a sick woman. Her colour had improved slightly by the time he was done, and he moved on to the next cot, staggering slightly as he walked, carrying the pan of tea carefully so as not to spill its precious contents.

Anders smelled food cooking after a while, and looked around to see the man tending a pot hung over one of the braziers, his pale hands capably cutting up vegetables at a table nearby and dumping them into it. There was a stack of wood on the floor nearby; he had no idea where the food or fuel had come from, but supposed the man must have brought it.

He was leaning against the cold stone wall, having trouble tracking things properly now, when the man walked over to him, carrying a bowl and spoon in one hand, a blanket draped over the other. "You need to rest, Anders," a familiar voice said, well-known and much-disliked bright blue eyes meeting his. "You'll do your patients no good if you're too tired to move, or sicken yourself."

He could only stare at Sebastian, dumbfounded by his presence. Where was the shiny white armour, the proud stance he was so used to seeing? He tried to muster words, to ask what Sebastian was even doing here, but was so tired that all he could do was gape, and slip a few inches down the wall as his knees unaccountably gave out on him.

Somehow Sebastian caught him without slopping stew everywhere, one strong arm wrapping around his waist as the man leaned hastily against him, pinning him momentarily to the wall to stop his fall.

That made Anders laugh, weakly. The last person he could have ever imagined being pinned by was _Sebastian_ , chantry prude that he was.

"Come on, straighten up," Sebastian said softly. "I'll help you to your bed."

He couldn't stop grinning and snorting, but somehow he got his feet back under him, and with Sebastian's help made it into the tiny side room that served as his bedroom. He must have faded out for a bit; it seemed to him that one moment they were staggering in through the door together, and the next he was in bed, propped up against the wall with a thick woolen blanket – not one of his own faded, patched and worn-thin ones – draped over him up to the waist. His robe and leggings were gone, leaving him in shirt and smalls, Sebastian frowning as he tried to get Anders to eat from a spoon held to his lips.

He'd have pushed the man's hand away if he could, but as he opened his mouth to protest, the smell of the stew reached his nose, and his mouth flooded with saliva as his stomach woke. Then the spoon was tipping food in his mouth, and he closed his eyes and moaned approval as he chewed the well-stewed vegetables. And _meat_ , there was real meat in it, not mystery meat (usually rat, or sometimes dog) but pork if he was any judge, making the stew rich and flavourful with fat. Hunger took over, and any protest he might have made about Sebastian's presence died as he all but inhaled the stew, eating it as quickly as the other man could spoon it into his mouth.

Sebastian had an amused smile on his face by the time Anders had finished. "Perhaps I should get you a second bowl of stew," he said. "When did you last eat?"

"I don't remember," Anders admitted after frowning in thought for a moment.

"Second bowl it is," Sebastian said, and left the room. Anders remained where he was, feeling a pleasant lassitude weighing him down now that he'd stopped moving. He wondered how long it was since he'd last slept. Oh, there'd been the odd nap here and there, in between dealing with new patients and emergencies, but those didn't count... and as to the last time he'd _really_ slept... he couldn't remember. Days, certainly.

He was feeling rather drifty again by the time Sebastian came back "Why are you here?" he asked tiredly, as Sebastian sat down again on the edge of the cot, already spooning up more of the stew to feed him.

"Because help was needed here," Sebastian said quietly. "And I could give it."

Anders just stared at him, allowing the other man to feed him a few more bites of food. Sebastian frowned slightly, and concentrated on the bowl in his hand. "I knew you'd be overworked, with this flu hitting Kirkwall. The chantry is doing what it can in Lowtown, and the nobles of Hightown are nothing if not good at looking after themselves. But I knew you were unlikely to have any real help here. So I came to do what little I could," he said, then glanced at Anders, momentarily meeting his eyes as he fed him another spoonful of stew. "I cannot heal, not like you. But I can see that there are blankets for the sick, and food, and fuel for the fire, and I can be here to feed and care for the sick while you sleep, so that you _can_ sleep. And by helping you to stay well and rested and fed, I help all of _them_ , too," he said, his head nodding just slightly toward the doorway leading to the other room. "It is a thing worth doing."

Anders nodded. "Thank you," he said, voice muzzy, sleep rapidly overtaking him now that he was fed and warm and comfortable.

He was aware of strong arms closing around him, easing him down to the bed, and of being tucked in. He thought he even felt the back of a hand pressed briefly to his forehead; checking for any sign of fever, he supposed. He slept then, for surely the kiss that ghosted over his cheek was a dream, nothing else.


	2. We Have Our Roles To Play

He couldn't hate the man any more. Not after Sebastian had laboured so tirelessly beside him during the flu epidemic, helping care for the sick, helping care for Anders as well, seeing that he got enough food and enough rest to care for his patients. Not after watching the man comfort a dying old woman, and unflinchingly prepare the bodies of the dead – thankfully few – to be taken away to the burning grounds outside the city, each carefully washed and neatly wrapped in clean cloth, just their too-still, too-pale faces showing, peeking out of the swaddled shrouds.

The epidemic was largely over now, just a handful of people remaining in the clinic as they recovered their strength, well-fed on the thick soups and stews and pottages that Sebastian had made daily, providing both the food and the fuel to cook it.

"Did the chantry pay for this, or did you?" Anders had asked once, helping to chop cabbage into shreds one day when he was both well-rested and between patients, glad beyond words to be able to just sit on a stool and do nothing more vital than help chop vegetables for the pot.

"Does it matter?' Sebastian asked, and smiled, and would say nothing else on the subject.

It did matter, Anders thought. At least to him.

As he lay on his cot one afternoon, napping while Sebastian kept an eye on the patients – _their_ patients – he found himself thinking that he might actually miss the man when the epidemic ended, and the archer went back to the chantry and his shiny armour and his obnoxious faith. He didn't like that Sebastian at all. He liked the Sebastian he saw here, the one who wore a robe of undyed cloth, and coarse rope sandals, who had caring hands and a warm smile, and was full of soft words and kindness.

He woke to a hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently. "Anders. You're needed." He accepted help to rise, stiff and sore and still tired, after too many days of too little sleep, and that mostly interrupted.

Not the flu, he was relieved to see; a broken arm, and nastily scraped hands from where the boy had tried to break his fall, filth ground into the bleeding scrapes. Sebastian washed the boy's hands while he set and splinted the break, the archer's hands sure and gentle as he worked, neatly trimmed fingernails picking out bits of grit and splinters. A touch of healing magic when he was done drew the scrapes closed, not fully healed but healed enough to prevent infection, a constant danger here in the dank and filthy depths of Darktown. The arm would have to heal on its own; bone healed best when left to heal at its own speed.

The boy's mother offered teary thanks, a worn-thin sheet and an old shirt as thanks. The shirt was of a size for him to wear, an extra layer against the winter's chill under his enveloping robes. The sheet he would boil clean, then tear it in strips and roll them up, sprinkled with a little oil of thyme if he could find any – that made the best bandages.

He was stumbling with tiredness as he returned to his room, even that little amount of healing being more than he could easily do, after overusing his powers so much of late. A strong hand caught his arm, preventing him from falling, a muscular arm wrapping around his shoulders and helping him to walk, not the first time the man had assisted him. He locked his hand in undyed cloth as he was helped to sit on the edge of his cot, refusing to lie down, raising his head to look blearily into bright blue eyes, a face so tantalizingly close to his own.

"Sebastian," he said, then stopped, just studying the other man's face, feeling confused. Sebastian the chantry priest who he should hate. Sebastian with the gentle touch. Sebastian, the prick of a pompous privileged prince. Sebastian, his... friend? Maybe?

He wasn't sure any more. "Why are you here?" he asked again, not the first time he'd asked that question since the archer had appeared unasked-for in his clinic.

A shrug, a slight smile. Not answer enough, not this time. His hands tightened in cloth, pulled the man closer. Lips met lips, unresponsive at first, then a hand moved to cup around the back of a neck, where tense muscles loosened, even as lips did. A different answer, this time, as breath hitched and someone – Anders, Sebastian, which did it matter? – moaned softly.

"I should hate you," Anders said unsteadily after a while. "You're part of the chantry; a priest, or close enough to one. Why can't I hate you any more?"

Sebastian gave him a crooked smile, from where he knelt on the floor before him. "I could ask the same," he said quietly. "You are a mage, an apostate... an abomination," he pointed out, then frowned in thought, looking down at his hands where they rested on Anders' knees. "But I don't hate you. I can't, after seeing how you half-kill yourself to care for those who need your help." He studied Anders' face for a moment, then bit his lip, looking away. "I should go," he said abruptly.

"Wait," Anders said, catching at his robe again. "I don't... I can't..." he broke off, not sure at all what he was trying to say.

"I know," Sebastian said quietly, then lifted his hands to cup gently to either side of Anders' face. "Perhaps if we'd met some other time, some other place..." he trailed off, then his lips crooked into an amused smile. "Been some other people."

They kissed, then, a long and tender kiss, gentle and achingly sweet, tinged with longing and more than a little regret.

"We each have our roles to play," Sebastian whispered as he rose to his feet again, fingers trailing against the side of Anders' face. "Our different places in the Maker's plans."

Anders snorted. "Forgive me if I prefer to believe I act out of my own will, not the Maker's."

Sebastian smiled warmly. "We each act as we must," he said. "Which may or may not accord with the Maker's plans; but He allows for that, I think."

He left, then, leaving Anders to lie down and rest again and to regret, at least a little, all the things that meant he should keep himself distant from the other man.


	3. I Miss Who I Used To Be

Somehow it just amused Anders that both he and Sebastian had fallen ill with the flu they'd been treating for weeks even as their last few patients grew well enough to be released. Though it most likely was the rising fever and accompanying disorientation that made it seem funny to him, he later decided.

He'd missed the early signs of the sickness in both of them; as hard as they'd both been pushing themselves for so long, things like fatigue, headache, body aches, and a growing inability to focus were just part of life. They were both coughing, but they had been all along, the cold, dry and smoke-laden air that filled the clinic not exactly being easy on the lungs and throat. But they'd kept coughing even once most of the braziers had been extinguished, and Anders had realized he was shaking from more than the wintery air, and that Sebastian was flushed and staggering from worse than exhaustion. The flu, after ignoring the pair of them for all the long weeks of the epidemic, was claiming them at last.

The lanterns outside were extinguished; the doors closed and barred against intrusion. They'd managed, with their last remaining strength, to set themselves up to weather it out in Anders' bedroom, a windowless closet of a room but small enough to be heated with just a single brazier – a good thing, considering they were down to so few sticks of fuel, and neither of them well enough to go fetch more. Anders had dragged a second cot in, wedging it in the narrow space beside his own, and they'd carried in a pile of the warm wool blankets, ones that hadn't already walked off wrapped around the shoulders of people who'd needed every bit of warmth against the winter's cold of Darktown. They were staggering as they hauled in pails of water, and what little food and medicine remained in the depleted clinic. They were neither of them hungry – a little nauseous, if anything – but Anders insisted that they both eat a bowlful of the lukewarm pottage leftover in the pot hanging from a crooked tripod over the small brazier, before they cocooned themselves in layers of blankets and slept.

Anders wasn't sure how many days had passed, since then. At least two or three. He'd lost track, somewhere during the worst of the delirium, when it took all his energy just to rise long enough to make use of a chamber pot, force some more food down his own or Sebastian's throat, add a few sticks of wood to the brazier, brew the medicinal tea that was all they had to combat the fever and the aches. Sometimes it was Sebastian waking him, to force food or tea down his throat instead. Sometimes they just lay there, in the darkened room, listening to the rale of each other's breathing, the racking coughs, too sick and too tired to talk, too uncomfortable to sleep.

Eventually he woke up feeling... well, not _better_ , but not as bad, anyway. Weak and muzzy-headed still, but he managed to sit up for a while, then to get up and tend the brazier – sitting in a heap of scraped-out ashes now – and fetch water and a clean pot from the main room of the clinic, setting it to heat over the brazier and throwing in a handful of the dried meat, barley and wizened vegetables that was all that was left of their food supply, to make soup for the two of them. He carried out the overly full chamber pot as well, grimacing at the stink as he dumped it down the gaping crack in one corner of the clinic's floor that served him as a drain, a crack that led out to somewhere on the cliff face overlooking the inlet, judging by the sea-smelling drafts that blew up it at times. He rinsed out the chamber-pot, dumping that down the crack too, then restored it to its position under the foot of his cot.

He washed, after that, standing alone in the darkened clinic near the rough-carved stone sink in one corner, thankful as always for the water tap there, that drew water from somewhere deep in the rock, water as cold in summer as it was in winter. Varric had tried to explain plumbing to him once, after arranging for the tap to be installed, but Anders hadn't been able to make head or tails of his explanation of where the water actually came from. But it was fresh and clean, cleaner than what came out of the wells up above, drinkable water, and for that he was grateful, grateful enough to not ask too many questions on the rare occasions when dwarves showed up at the clinic, needing injuries healed and saying "Varric sent me". He just healed them, and was thankful to have a ready source of potable water.

As he was thankful now, using the water – cold, but not as bitterly cold as the room itself was – to sponge himself clean, removing days of sweat, of salt and skin flakes. He even plunged his head under the tap, and lathered up his bedraggled, oily locks, shivering with cold as he rinsed but just so damned thankful to be _clean_ again.

"You'll catch a fever, washing in the cold like that," a familiar voice rasped from the doorway of his bedroom.

Anders flushed, a little embarrassed to be caught wearing nothing but a blanket wrapped around his hips, and turned to look at Sebastian. The priest was slumped against the door frame, a blanket draped around his shoulders over his stained and smelly robe. His feet were bare, toes curled up away from the cold stone floor underfoot, and his unshaven face looked a touch gaunt, as Anders was sure his own did, both of them having lost condition during the hard work of caring for the sick and then their own sickness as well.

"Already caught one," Anders answered with a slight smile, his voice just as raspy, still hoarse from coughing. "Want to bathe too?" he asked, gesturing at the tap. "You can have a turn when I'm done."

"Maker, _yes_ ," Sebastian said, fervently. "Let me know when you're finished," he added, then disappeared back into the room.

Anders dried off, and grimaced at his clothes, not wanting to put them back on until they'd been washed as well. He sorted through the pile of worn old clothes waiting to be either torn up for slings, bandages, and ties, or given away to the desperate poor, and found a clean shirt. It was worn thin and sporting a few holes, but it was large enough to cover him decently. He pulled that on to wear, wrapping his blanket around his too-thin legs to cover his current lack of either smallclothes or leggings.

While Sebastian took his turn at the sink, Anders stripped the sour-smelling blankets off their cots, piling them up on the floor just outside the bedroom door, and carried in fresher-smelling ones. By the time Sebastian returned – also dressed in a discard from the rag pile – the room was smelling a lot better than it had, of soup and medicinal tea and soap instead of sickness, sweat and chamber pot. They were both tired out again, and happy to just sit on their separate cots, wrapped to the waist in layers of blankets and sipping at bowls of warm soup.

Anders found himself studying Sebastian, thinking how used to the other man's presence he'd become over the last few weeks as they worked together in the clinic. For a brief moment, he entertained a fantasy of them continuing to work together, the healer and the priest, here in his clinic. Had they been any other two people, he might have risked asking Sebastian if he'd like to do so; to become Anders' assistant on a more permanent basis. But it wouldn't work out, he already knew. He was no common healer, working with potions and bandages and copious amounts of hope, nor was Sebastian any common priest. No; he was a mage, an apostate, even arguably an abomination, sharing his life with a spirit of the Fade as he did, and a vital member of the mage underground. While Sebastian... Sebastian was royally born, the favourite of the Grand Cleric, and a devout believer in the faith that saw Anders and his ilk as a danger, a _thing_ rather than a person; something to be locked up, shut away to prevent harm to others. Possibly to have his powers – a curse, no blessing – torn from him, or even to be killed for having dared to use them, no matter how many people he'd helped, had healed.

He'd wondered, more than once since Sebastian had become a part of Hawke's circle of companions a couple of years ago, just why the man had never betrayed him to the templars. He was sure the man must have at least considered it, and it would have been so easy for him – just a quiet word dropped in the right ear, and the templars would have been kicking in Anders' door and dragging him off to the Gallows. There certainly hadn't been any friendship between the two of them to prevent it.

Now... now, thinking back to a brief confidence, a kiss, exchanged when both of them were muddled with exhaustion, he thought he might have at least an inkling of the reason why. Or at least part of the reason why, anyway.

"You're staring," Sebastian said after a while, lowering his empty bowl to his lap.

"Sorry," Anders said, and smiled crookedly at him. "Just thinking. Wondering what you were like, when you were a young spoiled wastrel."

Sebastian laughed. "Horrible. I wasn't a very nice person, back then. Very charming, of course, but the only things I truly cared about were my own person and my own pleasures."

"What about archery?" Anders asked, putting aside his own bowl, then stretching out on his cot.

"I liked that well enough, but more because it pleased my grandfather than for any real love of it at the time," Sebastian said, leaning to the side to set his bowl down too.

"Sounds like you cared for your grandfather as well, then," Anders pointed out.

"I suppose I did. He was the only one of my family that cared much about me; I mourned him, when he died. I sometimes think it was only his interest in me that kept my family from shipping me off to the chantry any earlier than they did – they certainly saw it done fast enough after he'd died," Sebastian said, a faint edge of bitterness in his voice.

"And your family? Didn't you mourn them as well, when they were killed?"

Sebastian frowned, then sighed and lay down as well, rolling over on his side to face Anders. "A little, maybe. Though I think I was mostly angry; at them for dying without ever really accepting me. At being so little thought of by everyone that no effort was made to kill me as well. As if I wasn't worth killing; as if it was to be expected that I would just stand idly by and ignore what had been done to them. I didn't much like my father, or my brothers... but they were still my family," Sebastian said, then fell silent for a while. "I think what hurt most was knowing that now I'd never have a chance to prove myself to them; never have a chance to win their good regard, or any sign of their love for me," he said, then looked at Anders. "And you? What of your family?"

Anders shrugged and chewed on his thumbnail for a moment, tearing off a ragged edge of nail before speaking. "I barely remember them," he said, striving to keep his tone unconcerned, as if it really didn't matter. "I was young when I was taken by the templars. I remember my mother... she cried when I was taken away. My father didn't care, he just stood there and watched. I was so _angry_... at him, at the templars, at everyone. I suppose that's part of why I refused to tell anyone my real name when we finally reached the tower. I felt like, if my family didn't care enough to keep me, if my father hated me enough to turn me over to the templars... than I hated him too. I didn't want anything left to link me to him. Though I kept the pillow my mother had made for me," he added, jerking with his chin to where it rested on a shelf nearby, the only decorative item in the room. "I tried _not_ to think about them for the longest time... not to remember. And I suppose I mostly succeeded; I can't remember properly what they looked like any more. General details, yes, like the colour of their hair, and the way my father smelled when he'd come in from working in the fields all day. But mostly they're just blurs. People-shaped blurs." He fell silent then, lost in what few memories of them he still had; mostly of his mother.

Sebastian fell silent for a while as well, his eyes unfocused. After a while he sighed, and rolled over on his back, staring up at the ceiling. "I miss the younger me, sometimes. So certain of what was right and wrong, and of what I wanted to do, even if mostly it was drinking and gambling and whoring, no useful purpose. And not at all hesitant about chasing after whatever it was I wanted; not like now, when I can't decide what is the right path for me to take, nor allow myself to just go after what I want."

Anders found a slight smile crossing his face. "I sometimes miss my younger self too. It wasn't particularly pleasant a lot of the time, but I was better at enjoying whatever there was to be enjoyed. Very little drinking or gambling, or whores either for that matter, but I did manage to fit in rather a lot of sex anyway."

That drew a short laugh from Sebastian. "Sex seems a common theme in the lives of most young men."

"And young women too, though they're better at remaining discrete about in, in my admittedly limited experience," Anders pointed out.

"Hrmm, true... I always knew which of the other men – boys, really – among my peers were already experienced. With the women it was always a guessing game, though I got the impression they mostly waited until after they were married and had children before taking lovers."

"Lots of older women in your life?" Anders asked, grinning.

Sebastian blushed and smiled widely. "A few," he admitted. "How about for you?"

"One or two. But mostly people around my own age – other apprentices, mainly. And a dairy maid, once, on one of my escapes."

Sebastian smiled. "I used to run away too. It never helped; father would just send some of the guards out after me to haul me back home. And then he'd give me a big long talk about duty and responsibility and not bringing shame on the Vael name, and punish me. It never made any difference; I just ran away again the next time I felt like it."

"Punish you?" Anders asked curiously. "What sort of punishment?"

"Oh, nothing special. Being confined to my room for a few days, having favourite possessions confiscated, things like that. But I was very good at picking locks by then; I could have left any time I wanted. What about you? Did you get punished for your escapes?"

"Yes," Anders snapped, then rolled over, turning his back on Sebastian.

"I'm sorry," Sebastian said after a few minutes. "That was a stupid question, wasn't it?"

Anders just grunted, not trusting himself to use actual words to answer. Silence fell between them again, and this time neither of them broke it.


	4. As We Must

The epidemic was over; their own bout with the flu ended. Anders leaned back against the wall, watching Sebastian. They'd done laundry the day before, hanging their sopping clothes and sheets to dry in the breeze that blew in through the door-sized opening overlooking the channel leading to Kirkwall's harbour. A breeze that left everything smelling of clean sea air, rather than the assorted stinks of smokey, filthy Kirkwall.

Anders was back in his coat and feathered mantle and knee-high buckled boots now, Sebastian once again wearing the simple robe of coarse undyed cloth and the rope sandals he'd been wearing when he came to help in the clinic during the worst of the epidemic. The archer's hands were empty; everything he'd brought here – the food, the fuel, the kettle and kitchen knife and the endless piles of warm wool blankets – were either used up, or being left here for continued use in the clinic. He looked around, bright blue eyes meeting Anders, and smiled slightly. "I should go."

Anders nodded, and straightened up, suppressing a sigh. Not one of relief; one of regret. He'd become used to Sebastian's presence during the long weeks just past; knew he was going to miss his company, miss his help. "Thank you," he said, "For all your help." He wished there was more he could say; wished, briefly, that they were different people. Wished that he could dare to ask Sebastian to stay, to continue helping; to offer him a place, _here_ , as Anders' partner in running the clinic.

"You're welcome," Sebastian said, and ducked his head, looking down at the ground instead of meeting Anders' eyes. "I would not exactly call it enjoyable... but it was _satisfying_ to work here." He glanced up, blue eyes briefly meeting brown. "With you," he added, voice barely above a whisper, cheeks colouring just faintly.

Anders swallowed nervously. His turn to look away, head turned to focus on a distant crack in the stone wall rather than facing Sebastian. "Your help was much appreciated, by myself as much as by my patients," he said. "Anyway... they'll be wondering where you've vanished to all this time, up at the chantry."

Sebastian smiled crookedly, gave a brief laugh. "I suppose so," he agreed, then took a few long steps, closing most of the distance between himself and Anders. Anders turned back to face him, both of them hesitating, both studying each other's faces for a long, long moment.

"Well," Sebastian said finally, reaching out to touch his fingertips lightly to the side of Anders' face. They both smiled, Anders turning his head just a fraction of a degree to press against Sebastian's fingers, before leaning back enough to break the contact. Sebastian's smile deepened, warm and amused, as his empty hand dropped back to his side. "Good bye," Sebastian said, then turned away and left.

Anders watched him go, regretting... many things, in both their pasts. Finally he sighed, deeply, and walked over to the door, boots scuffing against the rough stone floor, to open the doors and light the paired lanterns. If they were different people... but they were not. And what they were – apostate mage and noble-born priest – could not be more than the most tenuous of friends.

"We each act as we must," he muttered as he lit the first lantern, remembering Sebastian's words. In that, at least, the man was correct. Another cause for regret, when it came right down to it.


End file.
